


All That I Know

by Rubynye



Category: The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Abortion, Blood, Discussion of Abortion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Medical Procedures, One of My Favorites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth is pregnant. (This is not a kidfic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That I Know

**Author's Note:**

> With so many thanks to my friends and my sweetie who encouraged me, especially to Dira Sudis who used her splendid librarian powers to find me the info I needed.
> 
> Title again from Robert Browning's "My Star".

Beth squares her shoulders, announces, "I think I need a pregnancy test," and watches Chris's face as he undergoes the same cascade of emotions she just endured. His eyes light up with shocked delight that stabs ice through her heart, as he dreams for an endless moment of a family, of the baby they could have. His tender mouth widens into a huge smile as he steps forward, reaching out to her, and it's all she can do not to shrink back from his scalding happiness until --

\-- like a supernova, flaring bright and blowing itself to bits, Chris's joy vanishes, his eyes going round and glassy, his mouth inverting to a little open frown as he realizes what she understood, staring at her own smiling face in their bathroom mirror. Everything about life in space makes a pregnancy a monumentally bad idea, but the radiation exposure alone is enough reason against it. Even if Beth left the EVA rotation, which would be unfair and unprofessional, she soaks up enough just living on the _Hermes_.

If she is pregnant, she can't be.

"..I hope it's not..." Beth starts, or tries to, but she's not going to lie to Chris, not ever, not now. He blinks and focuses on her, his hands falling to his sides. They stare at each other, surrounded by the medical bay and the _Hermes_ and the immensity of space between Mars and Earth, and Beth feels tiny and cold and alone, looking across an infinite arm's length into his blue eyes.

"Yeah," Chris agrees, straightening his back, squaring his shoulders, putting on his professional smile, and Beth just wants to shrink into her hoodie and hide in a crevice somewhere. If he'd only touch her. There's no way she can ask him to. "Yeah, um, yeah, there should be some in the GYN drawer." He turns away to look, and Beth doesn't turn and run, she swallows around the sudden lump in her throat, blinking her stinging eyes. She got through high school and hackathons, dealt with venture capitalists and astronaut training. She can do this. Even if she's not sure what it is.

After all, maybe it's nothing.

"Here you go," Chris says, holding out the little wrapped stick. Beth reaches out, but their fingers don't even brush, and something quivers inside her. She wants to fling herself at Chris, bury her face in his chest, wrap his arms around her back, demand comfort. 

She nods, and heads for the lavatory cubicle to pee on the stick.

***** 

As Chris tapes the gauze bandage onto her bicep, Beth watches his intent face. From this angle his eyes look closed, lashes fanned out over his cheekbones, his full lips parted just a bit in concentration. She always likes how he looks when he's concentrating, especially when he's concentrating on her. She kind of wants to kiss him. She doesn't think she dares.

She closes her eyes and tips her head forward. 

"Okay," Chris says, and Beth looks down as he drops her shirt into her hands. "I think I got out all the scar tissue, and I've repositioned the implant to decrease the chance it'll scar up again. At least that explains how you managed to ovulate." Beth nods, watching her shirt twist as she aimlessly wrings it, until Chris's blue-wrapped chest appears before her, until he sets his hands gently on her bare shoulders, too gently, still professional. 

She looks up, and Chris's eyes are dark and sad and not professional at all, and she shouldn't be reassured by that. "I'm sorry," he says, and his throat bobs as he swallows hard. "I should've kept checking your levels and not just assumed the implant was working." His hands tighten, the way he grips her to pull her in for a kiss, and she welcomes the pressure. "I should've," he repeats, his voice thickening, and looks away, shaking his head. "I shouldn't've --" She goes cold all over, under his warm hands, inside and out. "I'm sorry, Beth. I'm sorry."

"No," Beth says, to herself, to Chris, to the fucking universe. "Not -- not here." Not in his medbay, not where he has to be her doctor, she can't do this here. "After dinner, we'll -- " she doesn't even know, the possibilities a gaping void. Her heart feels like it's freezing inside her. "Let's talk in our quarters. Not here."

Chris nods, looking at her again as he steps back, trailing his hands down her arms. He lets go, and she pulls her shirt back on, but before she can reach for her hoodie he says, "Beth," and she looks up.

"I love you," Chris says, and the ice around her heart cracks. "I love you. I -- God, no, you're right, I have so much to say, but not here. But I couldn't let you leave without making sure you know I love you. "

Beth cracks all the way through, she presses her face to Chris's chest and wraps her arms around his waist and just hangs on. He folds his arms around her, pressing his lips to the top of her head, and they cling to each other for a long, desperate, far too short moment.

Beth steps back first, before she never does, pushes up on her toes and brushes her mouth across Chris's. "I love you too," she tells him, and makes herself turn, grab her hoodie, and go.

***** 

She doesn't even bother attempting dinner. She runs on the treadmill and drinks more water than she wants, goes by the supply room and picks up some extra towels, takes a long shower and gets dressed again and stands at the viewport staring out at the distant stars until Chris comms her with, "I'm in our room."

When she steps inside Chris is sitting on their bunk, dressed for bed in the loose tee and shorts that usually end up on the floor anyway. He gives her a hopeful smile, eyebrows up, and she manages to prop her mouth up at the corners, crosses the room to grab a towel and then back again to sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee.

"Can I touch you?" is not what she expected him to start with. She blinks in surprise as she nods -- he can always touch her -- and his mouth twists a little as he wraps his arm around her shoulders, his hand just above the repositioned implant. "So, um, I owe you an apology." Beth shakes her head, inhaling to protest, and Chris nods. "I do, and I should say it now. I -- I keep thinking I don't deserve the Berniker. I've broken my oath. This is why Hippocrates made us swear not to seduce our patients. What a clusterfuck of conflicting interests." Beth feels an echo of that cold fear from before, but she remembers Chris telling her he loves her. He looks her in the eye and smiles, and she's relieved and embarrassed and not all that surprised; she nods encouragingly, and he continues, "But I wouldn't take it back, not a night, not a second. I'm sorry that I'm not sorrier. I'd rather have you than anything."

Beth has to smile, even as she fidgets with the towel. "I still don't get what you're apologizing for," she says after a moment, and Chris drops his eyes but he grins. "I wouldn't take any of it back either."

"Even now?" he asks, looking up through his lashes. He probably doesn't even know how good a look that is for him.

"Even now." But it's Beth's turn to look down. "If this is what you're apologizing for, it's not like I didn't enjoy myself. It's not like I didn't enjoy _you_." 

Chris chuckles a little, more relief than humor, gently pressing his fingers into her arm. "So, what do you want to do?" he asks in his doctor-voice.

"What do _you_ want?" Beth counters, because Dr. Beck is exactly who she doesn't want to talk to about this.

"I asked first," Chris says, and Beth just glares. "Okay, okay. I -- I have two different answers, you know? There's -- I love you. It all comes back to that. The first time I saw you I knew I wanted to see you for the rest of my life. I haven't ever stopped wanting that, wanting you." Beth's heart pounds, her mouth goes dry so all she can do is nod. Every time they talk about the future she gets dizzy with happiness. "I would, I wish --" even though Chris's eyes are sad again, even though she aches inside. "But I'm also your doctor until we land, and as your doctor, I can tell you it's not a good idea. At all."

"Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say." Beth's voice is steady, but her vision wavers, and she mops her face with the towel. 

"Our radiation exposure alone," he says implacably, confirming her thought. "In a week we take a dose three times the recommended limit for an entire pregnancy. Plus, our bones are already demineralized from being up here, I don't even know if you could build yours back up fast enough while pregnant. That's just what I can think of, I'm a flight surgeon, not an ob-gyn, a lot could go wrong that I just wouldn't be the best doctor to handle. No one knows the effects of reduced gravity on a pregnancy -- I'm still taking notes on the mice." Beth half-smiles at that, and Chris takes a breath, and another, and visibly makes himself go on. "To be blunt..." He waits for her nod before continuing. "You'll probably miscarry, and the longer you're pregnant the harder that'll be on your body. And if by some miracle you don't, you'd be up to seven months when we got home. I don't know if you'd even fit into your flight gear."

Beth realizes she's been staring at nothing and looks up at Chris's terrible little joke, at his wet eyes and painful smile. She lifts the towel and he grabs her hand and presses it to his face, towel and all, for a long moment. "This sucks," he mutters, muffled and damp. "This sucks and I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." Beth chokes out, and Chris pulls her to his shoulder and kisses beside her eye as she bites her lip against crying. She presses her face into his neck, her favorite spot, and just breathes in the warmth of his skin as she turns over her next words, as she waits until she's sure she won't sob. "I feel guilty," she mutters, and Chris tips away just enough to look at her. "I've been so proud of myself. College and my company and grad school and NASA and all this time I kept a lid on my fertility, I never even had a pregnancy scare. I thought I had it all under control." She laughs a little, looking at nothing, at the heterosexual side of her last dozen years. "Then I make it to space and get knocked up."

Chris wraps both arms around her. "Don't be so hard on yourself. Those implants are pretty effective. It was dumb bad luck yours got encapsulated. A million to one chance."

Beth thinks of Mark's ordeal, how he still sleeps longer hours and the new lines around his eyes, and mutters, "Why is this the mission of million-to-one chances?" Chris shrugs, pressing his cheek against her hair, and for a moment she just clings to him and lets her eyes leak. Then, as she towels fresh tears off her face she asks, because she needs to know, "What if I don't end this pregnancy?"

"Uh," is all the flat out disbelief Chris lets himself voice, and Beth loves him so much.

"I heard everything you said." She drops the towel in her lap and presses her hand to his chest, over his thumping heart. "But what if I keep this baby?"

"I'll object on medical grounds in the strongest possible terms," Chris murmurs, his voice soft around the hard words. "Because I'm your doctor. And then I'll go with you to talk to Commander Lewis, and she'll probably rip my balls off." Beth can't help a snicker at that. "And I'll do this with you. Every step of the way. We'll have to deal with NASA and the public and your parents, all of it, I'm yours. If we all somehow make it through to term, I'm the baby's too. Both of yours."

Beth wraps her arms around Chris's ribcage and squeezes until he huffs. "Thanks," she muffles into his shoulder. "Chris. Thank you." She swallows against the lump in her throat and goes on. "But I can't. I had to ask, but really, I know I can't do this up here. We need to end it."

She expects Chris to agree, or say a sympathetic 'sorry', but he murmurs her name into her hair, and they sit together, wrapped around each other, for a long time.

***** 

Somehow Beth sleeps, her head tucked under Chris's chin, his arms around her, and when she dreams it's of the gray and purple of Martian sunset, the red of the sand and rocks, the sharpness of the shadows, nothing but color and darkness and light.

She opens her eyes to see Chris sitting up watching her, silhouetted by the soft nightlight, and feels all her hollow fears from yesterday filled with a rush of love. She's not alone. She smiles, reaching for his hand, and Chris slowly, warmly smiles back.

"Thank you," she says, and his eyebrows go up over his widened eyes. "For being here with me."

Chris shrugs. "I'm the ship's doctor."

"That's not what I mean." Beth squeezes Chris's hand as she explains. "Thank you for being here as the guy who loves me."

Chris's mouth trembles. "What kind of asshole would I be if I weren't?"

"That's exactly what I appreciate." Beth pushes up to hug him, and he lets go her hand to gather her face up between his, cupping her cheeks like she's infinitely precious. 

She thinks he might kiss her, but he rests their foreheads together. "Beth," he murmurs, soft as a prayer. "Beth. We are together. We're gonna get through this." She nods, trying to unstick her mouth to reply, and can only hold on. 

Eventually Chris asks firmly, "Ready?" like it's a mission. But then, in a way it is. Beth nods, and he lets go and steps over to the console while she rubs her eyes. "Commander?"

"Yes, Beck?" Beth hears Lewis respond.

"Johanssen has an emergent medical issue," he reports smoothly. "Nothing life-threatening, but we need to handle it now. We'll be in the medbay for a few hours, and I recommend she be released from duty today and go on light duty for 48 hours after that. I'll keep an eye on her experiments."

"You can do her chores," Lewis answers, and Beth smiles a little. "Coming to breakfast first?"

"No, I'd rather get this taken care of sooner rather than later. We'll see everyone at dinner."

"We'll see you then. Lewis out." 

And, that's it. Chris turns back to Beth, holding out his hands, and pulls her to her feet. "You should have first shower," he tells her, and she nods, and goes.

***** 

_Got dressed just to take it back off again_ , Beth thinks, setting her folded shirt atop her hoodie. Bra and pants, slippers and panties, and then she's standing naked beside the tarp-draped exam table while Chris assembles a tray. Crossing her arms around her middle, she looks down at herself, the familiar topography of breasts and chest and belly and thighs, and has a moment's impulse to -- well, what, exactly? she asks herself. What could she say?

She lays a hand over her navel, where Chris likes to rest his when they're in bed at night. _Goodbye,_ , Beth thinks, to the possibility, the baby that could have been, with better timing, in another year or two. The maybe. 

Chris comes back and Beth folds her arms and looks up, trying her best to appear as okay as possible. "All right," he says briskly, setting the tray on the table and waving her up onto the exam bench. "The scan showed it's not ectopic, so this should be fairly straightforward." Beth does not say anything to that. She just takes the two cups he hands her, two little pills and some water, and swallows the contents. 

"There's a gel application as well," he says, and that's when she asks, because curiosity at least has been her friend.

"All this was in the GYN kit? I wouldn't've expected NASA to plan for mid-mission abortions."

Chris grimaces, and Beth's belly twists around the pills dissolving inside her. "Yeah, I guess they just gave us a standard field hospital setup. Hooray for standard setups." He looks up at her face a moment, searching for something, then leans out of being her doctor and kisses her quickly, just a warm little massively reassuring press of lips. "I probably shouldn't, but --" and then he grins. "Don't tell anyone I did that."

Beth smiles helplessly. "Don't tell anyone I liked it," she echoes, and he gives her one more smile before he reaches up with professional hands to guide her into lying down on her back, tucks a towel beneath her hips, and gets to work applying the gel. 

It's cold, of course, and his gloved fingers are efficiently impersonal, and she stares at the white ceiling. The silence between them isn't so big anymore, but it's still tangible. When that's done he unfolds a paper blanket and drapes it over her, and leans back into her line of sight to ask, "Okay, now we wait. Is there anything you need?"

Beth considers shaking her head no. She probably should make herself be tough. She's gotten through blizzards and coding crunches and having a tattoo jabbed into her skin. But she looks up into Chris's blue eyes and pulls her hand out from under the crinkly blanket and asks, "Don't leave me," because she's allowed to need Chris. "Please, just, stay with me."

"Absolutely." Chris comes around behind her and sits on the table, propping her up to lean back against his side. He wraps his arms around her, his cheek pressed to the top of her head, and he stays. He stays while the minutes tick away, until the first cramp slices right through the analgesic, while a jagged stream of pain rips through her belly and she starts to cry, even when she bangs her fist on his chest. Even when he starts to shake and she forces her aching body to turn, trying to hug him, but he just settles her back against his side. Chris holds onto Beth, steadying her, and stays.

Later, when it's all faded to a dull soreness and Beth's soaked Chris's sleeve with tears, her thighs wet and sticky and her face throbbing, Chris murmurs a hoarse, "Okay, one more thing and we can clean up," into her hair. She nods and he lays her down so gently her eyes ache with more tears, but she doesn't let herself start crying again. It's over. She stares at the dark insides of her eyelids and listens to the snap of gloves, keeping her breathing in a steady pattern as he tugs the ruined towel away and examines her. "Okay, looks like nothing was retained." She hears him peel the gloves off again. "Let me sit you up." When he does he brushes her wet hair back from where it's stuck to her face, and she looks up from under his hand, up into his infinite eyes. "Hey."

"Hey." Beth reaches up to curl her hands around Chris's wrists, just looking at him looking at her. "Um. Can I take a shower?"

"Yeah. Do you need any help?"

Beth opens her mouth, but what comes out is a too-true, "You'd come with me?" After everything else she's needed from him today?

"If you need me to," is his steady response, and Beth can't bear it. She lunges forward to pull Chris towards her, wrapping her arms around him again as she presses her face into his chest and bursts into more tears. "Beth?" he asks, his voice wobbling, and she can't even begin to say how amazed she is, how grateful. How loved.

"You love me," she gasps out, and he kisses the top of her head.

"I really fucking do." He hugs her until she snuffles to a stop, until she can brace her hands on his strong arms and push herself back. 

"I love you," she gasps, broken open. "I can trust you. I can't -- I wasn't expecting this." 

"Yeah, me neither." He smiles, lopsided and true. "But here we are."

"Here we are. And I need a shower." Beth lets Chris help her onto her feet. "I'll be okay."

"Call me if you feel lightheaded or dizzy or need anything," he says sternly, and she actually smiles as she obediently nods.

***** 

Beth doesn't really wake up from her nap until she's standing outside the kitchen, hand in hand with Chris. She drifted into and out of sleep, through getting dressed again and Chris's gentle medical questions, her head a little light and her mood strangely calm.

But now she wakes up on a jab of panic. On the other side of the kitchen door their crewmates are having dinner -- she can hear Mark and Rick laughing, Commander Lewis's dry voice, Alex's deep brief comment. Chris feels her hesitate, she feels him take a breath to ask her what she wants to do, and -- there are times to plan and times to act. Beth steps forward and shoves the door open.

Everyone goes silent as soon as she and Chris step inside. Beth's resolve to brazen it out fizzles and vanishes like a drop of water tossed into vacuum, as Lewis and Mark and Alex and Rick all look at her and she can see that they know, written across all their faces as clearly as text. They're not dumb, they figured out exactly what her emergent medical issue was.

Lewis gets out of her seat, walks over, and pulls Beth and Chris into a big hug. Chris gasps a little, his fingers shivering around Beth's, and Beth presses her face to her Commander's sympathetic shoulder and just shakes. 

More arms wrap around them, more bodies press into the warm hug. "Hey," she hears Mark say, because he physically can't not talk, and smiles into Lewis's shoulder. A mustached mouth brushes a gentle kiss onto her forehead and she looks up into Rick's reassuring smile. Everyone knows how seriously he takes his faith, she's been especially afraid of his reaction, but he just squeezes her more tightly, and she has to shut her prickling eyes, clinging to Chris and to Lewis as everyone, even reserved Alex, hugs them both.

Eventually they let go, but Mark leads Chris over to the table and Lewis walks Beth to sit right across from him. Rick and Alex hand them bowls of steaming noodles and mugs of warmed apple drink. They look up at everyone as Chris stammers, "Thanks," and four smiles shine on them.

"Eat up," Lewis says, patting Beth's shoulder, Mark starts teasing Rick about pizza again, and she and Chris obediently settle into their dinner with their crew surrounding them.

***** 

In bed that night, Chris lies down facing Beth rather than spooning her like he usually does, and says, "Okay, nothing inside for six weeks. No tampons, no fingers, no me."

"Yeah, I remember." Beth kind of likes feeling strong enough to snark. "You only said so three or fifty times."

"I was reminding myself," Chris teases, his hand on her waist. As she smiles she reaches up to trace his lips, running her fingers along the line of his jaw and the cleft of his chin, just looking at him. It was a hell of a way to get here, but Beth feels like she can see further into Chris now. She loves what she sees. 

"Can I promise you something?" Chris asks, and she nods without thinking, without hesitation. He folds his free hand around hers and closes his eyes a moment. "When we get back," he says firmly, he always says 'when' about that, not 'if'. "I want -- I want everything with you. If you want a baby, we'll have that baby. I want it too. If we can." He looks up now, and his eyes are shining, not like any of the stars around them but like Earth does, brilliant and blue and full of life. "And if we can't we'll figure it out. But either way, I'm yours, Beth. I'm not going anywhere."

"I know," is all she can say, from the bottom of her soul, after he proved it over and over today. "And I'm yours, Chris," which she's never said before. "I'm yours too, for as long as you want me."

"How about forever?" he asks, fearlessly, breathtakingly, with the sweetest little smile, and Beth has to pull him down to kiss him, again and again, until she can manage to speak. 

"I love you," she murmurs over his lips. "Forever sounds good. It sounds really good."

"I love you too," Chris tells her, as he shuts his brilliant eyes, and Beth believes him like she never has before. They curl in together, forehead touching forehead, and that's how they fall asleep.


End file.
